South Front Crisis News 25 May 2015: Ukraine talks and Syria vs. ISIS in Palmyra

    

Subgroups of the Contact Group for settling the civil war in Ukraine will have the next round of talks on June 2, Heidi Tagliavini, the plenipotentiary representative of the European security organization OSCE said on Friday. Notwithstanding the talking, Kiev government is continuing offensive actions in Donbass. During last night, firefights were observed in Donetsk Airport. Settlements Peski, Elenovka and Yasnoe were shelled by mortars and battle-tanks of Kiev's forces. The clashes are continuing in settlement Shirokino which pro-Kiev militants are trying to capture since winter. Apparently, it won't be any constructive dialogue If Ukraine's forces gain any preponderance in clashes before the talks.

The Syrian army is engaged in a "complicated" offensive to liberate the Syrian city of Palmyra from the Islamic State terrorists who overran the city last week. "We estimate that ISIL had over 1,800 militants in the attack. Less than 300 of them are locals but we are still on the outskirts of the city and once we regroup a substantial force things will begin to change," a Syrian army officer said at the Press TV's footage from the front line. On Sunday, the ISIS militants slaughtered 400 civilians, mostly women and children in the central Syrian city since it fell to the insurgents. The massacre came after the terrorists accused the victims of cooperating with the Syrian government and refusing to follow the orders of ISIS.

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United Nations talks to end the conflict in Yemen have been postponed just four days before they were due to begin, a UN official told AFP news agency. Underlining the difficulty of trying to get the rivals around the negotiating table, self-styled Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi laid out demands to attend the talks in a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, insisting Shia Houthi forces must withdraw from territory they have seized. The embattled leader demanded full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2216. The April resolution called on the Houthis to relinquish territory they seized and surrender weapons they took from the army and other state institutions. We remember, US-backed Saudi coalition is bombing Yemen since March 25 in order to support Mr. Hadi's political purposes.

The Russian government has considered and approved a draft free trade zone agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and Vietnam, the cabinet said in a statement. The document has been signed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and posted on the cabinet's official website. The draft agreement in particular envisions liberalization of trade tariffs between the EAEU and Vietnam through reducing or setting to zero import customs duties on most commodity items included in the range of products of the deal's participants. The new integration association - the EAEU - started operating on January 1, 2015. Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia make part of the EAEU.